End of Days (1999)

November 24, 1999

Satan Is Planning Millennial Mischief

By JANET MASLIN

Published: November 24, 1999

In ''End of Days,'' Arnold Schwarzenegger assumes the cruciform position in a church as he modestly tackles the role of Jericho Cane, someone who could keep mankind free of Satan for the next thousand years. ''This is as pro-religious a movie as you can make,'' the film's director, Peter Hyams, recently told Variety. ''This is about the biggest action star of the past 20 years putting the gun down and saying the only thing that works is faith.'' What that statement overlooks is that it takes two ridiculous blood-soaked hours for Mr. Schwarzenegger to part company with his weapon.

Like a tag sale of used parts from better apocalyptic action films, ''End of Days'' presents Jericho as a near-suicidal (''Lethal Weapon'') ex-cop. Its idea of a subtle character flourish is giving him a ballerina music box, which makes him think sadly of his wife and daughter. They were killed because he was too busy to be home much, but by-the-numbers Hollywood screenwriting has ways to assuage such guilt. Jericho will be given a second chance: he can try to save Christine York (Robin Tunney) from becoming the mother of Satan's child (''Rosemary's Baby'').

Gabriel Byrne, who has a much snappier role, plays Satan with an evil grin and a slick corporate edge (''Devil's Advocate''). Actually, Mr. Byrne merely plays an investment banker who happens to be overtaken by Satan in the men's room of a restaurant. The essence of evil, which looks like throbbing plexiglass with attitude (''Predator''), enters the banker's body with a great show of demonic possession (''The Exorcist''). Once a nice guy, the banker returns to the dining room, walks over to a woman in a low-cut dress and simply grabs her breast. Then he kisses her, and she enjoys it. The episode may not say much about Satanism. But it does indicate something about the guys who made this movie.

It turns out that Satan must mate with Christine before New Year's Eve 1999, and that a battle royal is being waged over Christine's future. In one of the film's earliest and kookiest scenes, the infant Christine was whisked from the maternity ward to the morgue and suckled with snake's blood while Satanists prayed in Latin. Since then she has been carefully watched by a stepmother. The stepmother at least has a chance to slug Mr. Schwarzenegger when the action gets going.

''End of Days,'' which is as incoherent about its mysticism as it is about anything else, interrupts stretches of doomsday exposition with the inevitable chases and shootouts and beatings that are its raison d'etre. One character tears out his own tongue, keeps it in a jar, and eventually winds up crucified on the ceiling of a hospital room. These are the kinds of hints that persuade Jericho of the urgency of his mission.

With Kevin Pollak as his wisecracking sidekick, Mr. Schwarzenegger eventually cuts through the religious forces on either side of him and begins to deliver a mean-spirited quip or two. (''I'm not afraid to die,'' says his enemy. ''Good,'' says the star, ''because I'm not afraid to kill you.'') Looking trim and rested in his first film since ''Batman and Robin,'' he moves confidently from crisis to crisis, but can't get past much of the sheer absurdity here. It is no longer possible to believe in special-effects shots that show him hanging one-handed from a very tall building, for instance. As for the film's millennial pretensions, they don't amount to much more than billboards reading ''NY2K Where Will You Be?'' A possible answer, to cite one of numerous better movies around: anywhere but here.

END OF DAYS
Directed by Peter Hyams; written by Andrew W. Marlowe; director of photography, Mr. Hyams; edited by Steve Kemper; music by John Debney; production designer, Richard Holland; produced by Armyan Bernstein and Bill Borden; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 115 minutes. This film is rated R.